Migrating your email archive? Don’t forget support

We’re currently involved in a number of different archive migration projects, helping customers to move legacy email information from one system to another. These are often challenging projects to manage, with a lot of variables to consider.

One scenario which has come up a couple of times in recent months, is where a customer has made the decision to move an archive with several Terabytes of data from one third party solution to another.

Understandably at the point of deciding to do this, one cost they decided they could live without was the support contract for the solution they are leaving behind- why support a solution they are actively moving away from?

Well fast forward to 8 months later, and due to numerous environmental, technical and people changes, the migration is still ongoing.  This in turn impacts their migration to Exchange 2010 which cannot be completed as the old source archive is not compatible.

To get compatible clients, and upgrade the old archive will incur cost and time penalties that the customer has not accounted for on top of an already delayed project. The customer is faced with the unpleasant prospect of some unexpected costs if they want to carry on with their Exchange migration before the archive element is completed.

Our advice?  If your business is looking to make a change of archive platform, consider the implications should the migration take longer than expected.  And perhaps stay supported for the existing solution-  just in case..